On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on a quest to become the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century. This blog chronicles that journey. With apologies to Joan Didion, I call it THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PAINTING.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Good news for both Judith Miller and the Bush Administration! Proof of the allegedly-fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction now exists. You can see traces of them in this picture. Notably the sticks, the cans of paint, the little dishes and tins...

How do I know? Because just yesterday I used them to turn an otherwise promising picture...

Into this:

Yikes!

Now there are likely those who might yawn at such a statement, suggesting that I'm always bitching and moaning about how things are going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that means), only to find that somehow, several iterations later, things have returned to a satisfactory, possibly even improved state. And I suppose there is some merit to that position.

I push back by saying that what has been lost in the passage between the two images cannot--repeat, CANNOT--be regained. And that, in a nutshell, is the translucence of the first image, now marred by some ill-conceived flings on my part, as evidenced by the second.

Regarding the promise held by the first image? If Kafka were here, he'd tell you, "You can't get there from here."